Military faces calls for cuts after raid

Matt Wade, Islamabad

THERE are demands in Pakistan that military spending be diverted to economic development after the country's military intelligence failed to notice Osama bin Laden was in the country or detect the US raid that killed him.

Abid Suleri, executive director of Pakistan's Sustainable Development Policy Institute, is one of many voices calling for change.

''For many years we have been slashing our public sector development program budget but we have been beefing up our military budget,'' Dr Suleri told The Saturday Age. ''But in the aftermath of Osama bin Laden's death it has proven that investment was extremely futile … I think it's a historic opportunity to make the armed forces more subservient to democratic forces.''

Jugnu Mohsin, publisher and editor of the Lahore-based Friday Times, believes this is potentially a ''transformational moment'' for Pakistan, because so many groups are questioning the military's role.

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''I think this is a moment when civil society and political parties have an opportunity to right the skewed civil-military balance in this country,'' she said.

Dr Suleri said the only other time in Pakistan's history that the military had faced so much public criticism was after its defeat in the 1971 war, which resulted in East Pakistan's secession to become Bangladesh.

Dr Suleri said the government's Public Sector Development Program, which promotes health, education, agricultural development and water supplies in poverty-plagued Pakistan, was cut by 200 billion rupees ($A2.2 billion) last year.

''People have been sacrificing in the name of strong state security,'' he said. ''Now I think we need to redefine our security in terms of people's individual security, not just national security.''